As the door to the stable burst open, Luca was already rolling across the straw, grabbing his sword from where he had dropped it and rolling back up into a standing position in one swift move. Not letting his nudity get in the way of his fighting, he cut down the first bandit through the door with one stroke. He traded a few blows with the second and third before they went down, too, and whirled around as more bandits began to swarm in through the window.

“Don’t move,” a harsh voice cut above the melee, “or she dies.”

Luca looked around at the stable window to see what I was already staring at, shaking in fear. An arrow, poised ready to fly from a tensed bow, was aimed straight at me. I saw the tussle of frustration in Luca’s features – he couldn’t make it to the bowman in time, couldn’t take the arrow for me. In normal circumstances, regardless of the weight of numbers he was up against, Luca would have fought, to the death, if necessary. But with my life on the line, he dropped his sword and the bandits rushed forward to pick it up.

“Give him his pants for gods’ sakes,” said the harsh voice from the shadows. “I don’t need that thing giving me the eye.”

The owner of the voice stepped forward as Luca got dressed under the watchful eyes of the bandits. The man was sallow-faced and liberally scarred, with a scraggy beard and narrow eyes. He was not a large man, looming over the other bandits and yet, everything about him said that he was in charge here.

“I guess you should give the girl clothes, too, now we’ve all had a look. Very nice. My name is Cyrsan. They call me King Cyrsan. And you can, too.”

Luca said nothing.

“Sorry to interrupt you two love birds, but a man like you wandering around is dangerous. I hope I don’t have to tell you that if you try anything, the girl dies.”

“No! That was never part of the deal!”

My mouth fell open, the voice belonged to Ryne, the headman of Stenheim. He rushed forward from where he had been hiding behind King Cyrsan, but was held fast by the bandits.

“You promised you wouldn’t hurt any of our people if we gave you the mercenaries. That was the deal.”

“Ryne, what have you done?” I breathed.

The headman looked almost hysterical. “They’re not our people. They’re killers and probably worse. No one liked having them in town. Women aren’t safe.”

“Have they touched a single woman?” I yelled back at him, before realizing how this looked. “Except for me. But that’s different.”

“People weren’t safe.” Ryne stuck to his story.

I looked at King Cyrsan. “And you think they’re safe now?”

“We made a deal,” muttered Ryne. “We give them the mercenaries and they leave us alone forever. It was the right thing to do for the village.”

“And you think they’ll stick to it?” asked Luca, speaking to Ryne but his eyes never leaving Cyrsan.

“Of course we will,” laughed Cyrsan. “Won’t we lads?”

An amused cheer went up and I saw the horrified uncertainty in Ryne’s face.

“Now,” Cyrsan addressed Luca, “let’s put you with your friends. You’ll be pleased to know they didn’t surrender, but they ate the feast your hosts laid on to say thank you. Their meat was drugged. They’re sleeping it off. You, of course, had better things to do than eat.” He leered at me. “We’ll deal with you all in the morning.”

“You said you’d let them go,” said Ryne, pathetically. “We don’t want anybody to die.”

Cyrsan smiled. “Of course we will. We’re men of our word.”

As the bandits bound his hands, Luca looked at the bandit king. “We’re men here. Can we talk as men?”

Cyrsan paused, then nodded. “You’ll be killed in the morning. We’d like for you to join us, but people who would work for these villagers for no money… we’d just never be able to trust you.”

“Good choice,” said Luca.

“They’ll escape!” I found myself yelling at Cyrsan. “And then they’ll kill you.”

Cyrsan laughed. “If they kill me, then my men will raze this village to the ground. If they fight back, then we’ll start killing villagers. And for some reason, that seems to matter to your friends.”

“That wasn’t part of the deal,” Ryne’s useless mantra continued.

Cyrsan put an arm around Ryne’s shaking shoulders. “I’ll level with you, Ryne, because I like you. There’re a lot of things going to happen that weren’t part of the deal. We’re grateful to you for handing us these men, but in the end, you brought them here. Your village has had a little unspoken arrangement with us for decades; you give us food and supplies, and yes, a few girls when we’re lonely, and we don’t kill you. But when you hired these men, you defiled that arrangement. If I let you get away with it, then every other village will get similar ideas. So, you’re going to pay for it. I’m afraid we lied to you.”

“But… but…” Ryne continued to stammer as Luca was led out, flanked by ten bandits. He went with his head held high, stern and unafraid. I wished that I could have matched his calm, but I was distraught. I didn’t know what to do and realized that there was probably nothing I could do. I was surrounded by enemies. Not just the bandits, but the people I had grown up with. I couldn’t trust a one of them.

“Largon,” called King Cyrsan. “Watch the girl. I don’t think she’ll try anything, but she seems to have a bit more backbone than the rest of these villagers.”

The man named Largon – who looked even uglier than the bandit average – looked me up and down. “Can I…?”

“Do what you like if it keeps her from doing anything stupid.”

Before I could do anything, Largon had grabbed me by the wrist and was dragging me back towards the stable, amid the laughter and hooting of the bandits.

“No,” Ryne appealed to Cyrsan. “You said…”

“Do I have to go over this again, Ryne? I lied.”

Once we were alone, Largon slammed the stable door behind us and tossed me to the hay. “You made that pretty boy mercenary happy. Now, you’ll do the same for Largon.”

“I’d rather die,” I spat back at him.

“Not my thing,” replied Largon. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. I don’t think you’ll enjoy either, but I’d still recommend easy.”

I demurred and lay back on the hay. “Please be gentle.”

Largon began to shed his clothes eagerly. “I can’t promise gentle, but I won’t hurt you where it shows.”

Like an animal, he hurled himself on me. Which meant that my foot met his crotch with even more force than I had intended. It would have been nice to stop to savor the look of cross-eyed agony on Largon’s face, but I had no time for that. Taking advantage of his temporary incapacity, I lunged to where he had dropped his clothes, reaching for the knife in his belt. But Largon recovered himself enough to try and stop me.

“You’ll pay for that, you little bitch.”

Our hands scrabbled for the knife in the straw. But Largon was stronger than me and it was he who claimed the weapon as I tried to get away from him. Rushing to a corner of the stable, I felt something behind me.

“Now, you’re gonna get it,” snarled Largon, advancing on me, knife in hand.

I swung the pitchfork around from behind me, catching Largon on the chin with the butt end in a way that even Taka would have been proud of. The tool spun in my hand and I did not hesitate - I thrust forward and the two prongs pierced Largon’s chest. He stared at me in surprise for a moment and then fell to the floor, dead.

I looked down at him. I had killed a man. I didn’t feel any guilt about it and yet, there was still a quiet horror in what I had done.

The moment was broken by a sound at the window and a figure leaped into the room holding a knife.

“Hah!” yelled Bren. He then took in the room and relaxed.

“What the hell are you doing?” I hissed, not wanting to be overheard by the bandits outside.

Bren looked a little sheepish. “I came to save you.”

“That’s very sweet.”

“I was going for heroic and manly,” Bren said with a sheepish smile.

“What the hell even happened?” I asked.

He hastily explained how ill-feelings had spread through the village e– made up stories of the mercenaries taking advantage of young girls, speculation about what they might do after the bandits were dealt with. The overall feeling was that they were not saving the village from violence, they were bringing it with them. They were more trouble than they were worth. That sort of unsubstantiated rumor can cause panic if it goes unchecked and the town had harnessed that panic into a plan. They sent someone to find King Cyrsan and make a deal – the village would drug the mercenaries and hand them over to the bandits, if the bandits agreed to leave Stenheim alone forever.

“We finally had something to bargain with,” said Bren, wretchedly.

“We?” I asked, dread closing over my heart like a fist. “Bren, don’t tell me you knew about this.”

“I…”

I slapped Bren hard across the cheek before he could finish, fury like a living thing, writhing inside of me.

“How could you?”

“I was trying to do the right thing for the village,” he said, staring at the ground. “We all were. Damn it, Keira, we were scared. They could have killed all ten of those bandits easily, think what they could do to us.”

“But they didn’t kill them,” I pointed out.

Bren had no reply.

“What about my parents?”

“A few people stood up for the mercenaries – your mom and dad, old Elva. Ryne had them locked up.”

“Why are you helping me now?” I asked.

He had an answer to that, his head coming up fast, eyes flashing. “You’re my friend. No one treats my friends like that.”

“Those guys are my friends.”

He nodded. “I get that now. But I can help. I want to make things right.”

“It’ll be dangerous.”

“I don’t care. It’s the least I can do.”

“Where are they being kept?” The village did not have a ‘jail’. People were either made to work off penalties or, for more extreme crimes, were simply exiled.

“Cold storage,” replied Bren.

Just beyond the edge of the village proper was the windowless, stone-walled building where meat was stored in the warmer summer months. It was not far from the stable, another building kept outside the main village because it could smell a bit in hot weather.

“Okay then.”

So now there were two of us trying to set the guys free. We were barely out of our teens and had never been in a real fight in our lives. But we were both smart – relatively – and we were both brave – relatively – we could come up with something.

“We’re terrible at this,” said Bren, glumly, after about ten minutes of hard thinking.

“It’s just not what we do,” I admitted. “And we need to come up with something fast, before someone notices that this guy is missing.”

As my eyes shifted to the dead body on the floor, the beginnings of a plan started to form.

“What are you thinking?” asked Bren.

“I’m thinking that you were right – we’re not cut out for planning a prison break. But I know four people who are. All they need is an opportunity.”

A few minutes later, I screamed as loud as I could and ran out of the stable in the direction of the cold store. “He’s dead! They killed him!”

One of the bandits – there were ten or fifteen of them there on guard – came to meet me. “What are you screaming about?”

“One of the mercenaries killed Largon.”

“Impossible,” the man shook his head. “They’ve been locked up in there all night. There’s no way they could have gotten out.”

“Look for yourself.”

The man stared at me for a moment before nodding at a pair of his men. “Chak, Digon. Go and see.”

“You’re wasting time,” I said as the pair went back to the stable. “He went out the window, he’s getting away.”

“There’s no way any of them got out,” the bandit insisted.

But Chak and Digon hurried back with the news that Largon had been killed and my story started to sound plausible. “Alright. Go check to make sure they’re all still in there.”

Chak and Digon nodded. They heaved back the heavy bolt on the cold store and entered, closing the door behind them. They were gone for a long time.

“Something’s wrong. With me.” The bandit in charge led the rest of his squad into the cold store. This time, I heard sounds of a fight from inside, muffled by the thick walls of the store. I held my breath.

A second later, Taka strode out, carrying the spear of one of the bandits. He was followed by Luca, Kai and Rex, all of whom had armed themselves.

“Well done,” said Taka, as he saw me, and I swelled with pride.

“There’s more,” I said, really quite proud of myself. “Bren,” I hissed into the darkness, and Bren hurried up with horses.

“Very well done,” Taka added. But there was clearly something wrong with him, and with Rex and Kai, too. They stood unsteady, and even that ‘well done’ had been slightly slurred.

The guys and I mounted up. None of them questioned me coming with them, which was just as well, because my decision was made – there was nothing left for me now in this village of liars and traitors. Bren would look after my family, but they would be safer with me gone.

“Good luck,” whispered Bren.

I nodded back at him and then followed the guys as they galloped away into the night, up the slope towards the crags.